Pranksters, Bullies, and the Clique of Talentless Douche Nozzles
by HoodedSpellcaster
Summary: Avery is smarter than he looks. He's a brilliant prankster and a skilled wizard but his grades are never higher than Acceptable. He likes to blame his group of friends for that. After all, the nail that sticks up is the one that gets hammered down and it's so much easier to just hide his talents. /Marauders' Era


* * *

When Avery first started at Hogwarts he encountered his fair share of different people.

He met suck-up Prefects, pathetic Charms nerds, unfriendly rich kids, desperate wannabes, gillyweed-and-cookies junkies, brainless jocks, future MoM employees, and countless others. So many he couldn't even keep up with them. And none of them felt like family to him. So it took a while before he even realized, he, too, had become a part of a clique.

Avery had just been hanging around with Mulciber, who was even more out of place than he was, when few older students asked them to join them in the Great Hall. Sit with them, have breakfast with them, talk with them. Most of them had been his house-mates from Slytherin, but there were a select few Ravenclaws who were around from time to time. It seemed like they had known exactly who they were and what they were doing. Misfits and schemers with a peculiar sense of humour, pranking people and causing trouble in classes and corridors by bending the rules. They laughed when they got caught, _if they got caught_ , and never apologized. They were smart and funny, cunning and confident, and wherever they went people moved out of their way. Detentions meant nothing to them. Young Avery had thought they were cool. The whole idea of being their friend made him feel giddy. They were the elite of the school. The best and the mightiest. Avery liked to call them his heroes; pranksters he could look up to.

They were awesome and cool, all that and more, and the other groups called them bullies.

* * *

 _Oh well, they weren't completely wrong when they first called them that back in the end of their second year_ , Avery admitted one day when Mulciber tried to charm a Snargaluff hybrid to shoot its pods at the Gryffindors. A brilliant prank idea, not entirely Mulciber's own, though. Sirius Black did almost the same thing last week in Potions by making Snape's cauldron explode. Too bad he and Potter were both skiving off this time. There hadn't been a decent prank war between houses since last Halloween.

"I should warn you," Mulciber muttered through a predatory grin, gripping his wand tightly in his big shovel-like hand, "this class is gonna end in tears."

Avery refrained from rolling his eyes at that. They were, for once, not in any of the greenhouses but in a classroom in the second floor. Professor Sprout had moved a few of her new, experimental plant hybrids there for students to examine. They were supposed to be writing notes and sketching the plants, as there were sure to be questions about them in the exam in few weeks, but touching them was entirely forbidden. She was sauntering around the class, not paying attention to Mulciber's mumbling.

The whole scenario was taking too long and by now half of the Slytherins in class were watching Mulciber like a hawk. Avery gnawed on his quill. Of course he knew Mulciber would never succeed in the spell. Charms had never been his forte, nor had anything that required much precise wand work, really. But while watching his friend getting frustrated was one way to spend a lesson, it was by far not the most engrossing. But he couldn't let a great prank slide now, could he?

He waved his wand under the table, whispering an incantation under his breath. The plant, previously so calm and harmless, began viciously attacking the students close to it and its long vines whipped through the air like helicopter blades. It shot its pods at the group of Gryffindors before anyone could react. Mary Macdonald cried out in horror when half dozen pods hit her on her head and back in their slimy glory and got stuck in her long brown hair and robes. A few others got hit as well, but not nearly as badly.

Mulciber hollered, his laughter being the loudest and booming around the classroom even when the other Slytherins joined in. Professor Sprout tried to calm the plant down and console the weeping and sticky Macdonald, barely knowing which one she should pay more attention to. Mulciber grinned at Avery in almost manic manner, jumping up and down on his seat. Avery gave his best mate an appreciating smirk, letting Mulciber keep thinking he had finally performed the spell correctly.

Lily Evans was already glaring daggers at them from the other side of the class, knowing it had been either Avery or Mulciber who had angered the plant. Mulciber nudged Snape, still snickering and pointing at the Gryffindors. Evans looked positively murderous and Snape looked down in shame, looking like he wanted the floor to open up and swallow him whole when Evans' eyes met his. If Snape wasn't so good at Potions, Avery doubted they would have kept him in their group of friends. They - and by 'they' Avery meant the others - needed someone to copy their homework from. Avery smirked. Friends of not, Mulciber, Rosier, and Wilkes were far from the class' more intelligent folk, and sometimes it was such a shame professors and other students bunched him up with them. Mulciber at least had some snark, but Wilkes was just a pushover with a bulky build and Rosier was more harm than he was worth.

Sometimes Avery just couldn't help but feel so much better than the rest of them. He was good at several subjects - Herbology and Charms included - but he intended to keep his vast knowledge of those subjects to himself. It was a two edged sword, he had to admit. No one would know how smart he actually was. But that was fine, he kept telling himself. He packed up his notes when the class was dismissed, swiftly straightened the strap of his bag and joined Mulciber and Wilkes in the corridor.

"Did you see it? I knew the charm would work!" Mulciber grinned proudly, throwing his arm over Avery's shoulders. "And I told you it was gonna end in tears."

"Sure, you did," Avery said, lips curling into a sneer.

Prankster or not, no matter how well done his work, people in their right minds never take pride in their talents.

* * *

 **A/N:** Oh my gosh I was feeling so rusty when I wrote this. I seriously hadn't written anything HP related since the QL finals ended.

At first I had no idea what to write but I ended up writing about Avery and his group of friends (Mulciber, Wilkes, Rosier, and wee Snape) after re-reading parts and bits of "the Order of the Phoenix" for no apparent reason. This takes place before Snape calls Lily a mudblood. The round has the 'no wreaking havoc' rule (yes, I'm familiar with that rule) but I found pranking to be acceptable, because a small prank can't be compared to the Death Eater attack of '94 at the Quidditch World Cup, right?

A big thank you to Jordi for betaing this. There was so much yellow and red I was ashamed!

 **QLFC Season 4, Round 1 - Where My Death Eaters At?**

CHASER 3 PROMPT: Write about your chosen Death Eater being at school.

OPTIONAL PROMPTS:

8\. (quote) "People in their right minds never take pride in their talents." - Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

12\. (class) Herbology

15\. (dialogue) "I should warn you..."


End file.
